Louise Bernard with AFP 09:34, September 07, 2022

Tuesday morning, Sibyle Veil, the president of Radio France, gathered the group's employees to announce that she was running for her own succession for a new five-year term.

All potential suitors have until October 21 to apply.

Arcom will then make a selection and appoint the future president in mid-April 2023.

Sibyle Veil, the president of Radio France, announced internally, Tuesday, September 6, to be a candidate for her succession at the head of the public radio group, which she has been leading since April 2018. "I want you to be the first to know that I am about to submit to Arcom, the audiovisual regulator my candidacy for a renewal”, she wrote in a message sent to employees of Radio France.

First woman president of Radio France since Michèle Cotta in 1981

The Audiovisual and Digital Communication Regulatory Authority (Arcom) will audition the candidates for the presidency of the group in November before appointing one of them by January 16 at the latest.

To date, Sibyle Veil is the only declared candidate.

The decision of Sibyle Veil, the first woman president of Radio France since Michèle Cotta in 1981, comes in a troubled context for public broadcasting, faced with the abolition of the license fee, which brought it most of its funding, i.e. 3, 2 billion euros out of a total of 3.8 billion euros.

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Record audiences and democratization of culture

At the end of June, the president of Radio France had declared in an interview with 

Le Figaro 

that she was opposed to the idea of ​​a major merger in the public audiovisual sector and had said that she wanted to know the State's projects before applying to a second term.

Record audiences, acceleration of the digital strategy and democratization of culture are the three "major successes" of Radio France between 2018 and 2021, noted Arcom in a notice published at the end of July about the results of Radio France.

“Radio France managed in 2021 to install three of its radio stations among the ten stations with the highest audience share”, France Inter appearing, since 2020, as the most listened to radio station in France, underlines Arcom.

Another strong point to the credit of the leader: "the democratization of culture, particularly for young audiences" with an "exemplary" involvement of the group, welcomed the regulator.

The latter also noted that Radio France had succeeded in changing its digital strategy to respond to changing uses: almost half of radio consumption is now done via the Internet.

The regulator, however, invited the management of the group to more cooperation with the rest of the public audiovisual sector, in particular France Télévisions.